In the late 1980s the nations of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) began to seriously contemplate joining the EU, there were many reasons for this, but they included the realisation that it was the only way forward for trade and prosperity, in the case of Sweden it was also the fact that several large companies made it clear they would relocate if Sweden stayed outside the EU.

In 1994 the European Economic Area was formed (EEA), this was a compromise organisation for those members of EFTA who did not or could not join the European Union, joining the EEA meant access to EU markets, but the deal also meant accepting EU rules, even though these states were not / are not EU members.

THE QUESTION TO THE EUROSCEPTICS IS THIS: After leaving the EU, would the UK be free of all EU rules, regulations, directives and laws?

And the straighforward answer is: NO and here is why:-

A meat production company in Lincolnshire is close to signing a multi-million pound deal with a European supermarket chain, just before the two managing directors take out their pens to sign the agreement, the boss of the supermarket chain pulls out a list of conditions.

The list of conditions consist of EU rules, unfortunately Britain has left the EU and unless the British meat producer conforms to EU standards the deal cannot go ahead, the rules cover everything from animal welfare, temperature control, employee rights, labeling, weight, moisture content and hygiene.

So no matter what happens in the future, the UK will always have to accept EU laws

Think of Norway as an example of a European nation outside the European Union, Norway is a member of the European Economic Area ( the EEA ), and as such has to accept into law virtualy every EU rule, regulation, directive and law, furthermore Norway has had to sign up to many of the EU treaties.

Norway has no say and no vote on any of the EU legislation which it accepts, and this is exactly how Britain would end up, inside the EU the UK influences legislation, it does have a say, and it does have a vote, unlike Norway.

A FREE TRADE AGREEMENT "JUST LIKE SWITZERLAND" [ Nigel Farage ]

According to UKIP, the future under them would be simple, all we need to do is leave the EU and sign up to a new free trade agreement, and the future would be bright , but a free trade agreement ?, lets look at that word "agreement", an agreement is not one sided, it is between the parties that make the agreement, and lets face facts here, the EU will call the shots, not Britain.

The European Union is not going to change its rules to cater for a single nation of 60 million, especialy when that nation has left the EU but still wants all the benefits of belonging, namely trade.

I am afraid that under such circumstances, Germany, France, Italy and the rest would say "our way or not at all", the best solution by far is to simply remain within the EU and go forward into the future together.

The crash in the pound punctures the delusion that Brexit Britain will flourish

Extracts from an article by Aditya Chakrabortty:-

"Delusional thinking helped tip Britain out of the EU: the promise of those sunlit uplands of £350m weekly cashback and thousands of trading opportunities. Three months later and delusional thinking remains rife. Take the helium-filled unreality of the Conservative conference in Birmingham. There, the top draws were the Brexiteers, Liam Fox and David Davis; men whose careers were lost down the political U-bend just two years ago were now the star turns. But even outside the ideological hothouse, both political and media classes are peddling wild over-estimations of the British economy’s strengths, and complete fantasies about its future.

Let’s have some ugly facts. First of all, the crash in the pound is a reminder that Britain does not pay its way in the world. It buys far more goods and services from other countries than it sells to them. What the pound’s weakness will chiefly achieve is to stop Britons buying as much. The resulting rise in inflation will really hurt those relying on benefits, such as child and working tax credits and jobseekers’ allowance, frozen by Osborne.

We have a Britain that doesn’t make things, that can’t pay its way in the world and where two generations have been brought up believing that what your wages won’t pay, your credit will buy. As the promises for Brexit are broken and people get poorer, as the consumerist model breaks down, who do you think will pay the price? Without Brussels, the right still has one set of scapegoats left. They number the Muslim woman in the headscarf, the Pole in the wrong kebab shop, and the African cleaner on the nightbus."

For a variety of reasons I seem to have spent the last 48 hours explaining the concept of parliamentary sovereignty to the same people that I spent much of the first half of this year explaining why all of the jurispudence in this area showed that parliament was, in fact, sovereign, who until now have been very happy about the return of its sovereignty which in fact was never lost.

Some abridgements from my responses to the trolling elsewhere:

Assertion 1 - We have no Written ConstitutionThat's not correct [redacted]. The uk has a constitution that is written in many places, just not all together, and not written at the same time or even from the same sources. In so far as that goes you could argue that it reflects perfectly the development of the uk legal system in general.

Assertion 2 - All part of some big europhile conspiracy...800 years of constitutional law has produced 3 core principles. Parliamentary sovereignty, separation of powers and rule of law. A cursory glance at Wikipedia will confirm. Anyone with an even basic understanding of the subject would have expected today's outcome which strikes at two, maybe even all 3 of those principles. But hey, it doesn't fit your argument so it must be part of some great conspiracy.

Assertion 3 - Parliament handed over its sovereignty in the referendumnonsense. The constitution is what it is. If you have a point of constitutional law to raise, feel free...

and some further commentary (from me) on the judgement itselfThe fuller picture will be in the law reports, but I doubt they'll make it onto Westlaw before the appeal is heard...

As a narrow point of law does the executive require permission of parliament before revoking international treaty obligations ratified by parliament into domestic law? I'm pretty satisfied that it does. The specific terms - it will get what it is given or can bargain for, I see that as a separate matter.

So, for this, and fuller reasons, I'd be surprised to see the judgement overturned on appeal, and I think that government would be better off spending its time passing an act giving itself permission to invoke A50 than trying to assert its authority over parliament and overturn 800 years worth of uk constitutional law jurisprudence for political expediency and to suit the inner mechanisms of a conservative and unionist party very divided on the matter....

As a point of law the judgement is correct, and it doesn't surprise me. For what it's worth government should and could have legislated on this already. I did not and still do not want [brexit], but if we are going to do it then I'd rather we got it over with. It is a measure of how well the uk constitution adapts and evolves that we rarely have serious debates of about the constitutionality of the actions of the executive, but I think the verdict is both healthy and correct - as well as having been fairly predictable.

Well said - the popular reaction to this rather uncontroversial judgement serves only to show that most English people are woefully ignorant about how their country is governed.

As a person who voted to remain, my main concern now is to ensure that the terms of our exit are negotiated intelligently and with integrity for the best long-term outcome for the citizens of this country

Britain can be proud of itself. Once again, it had already shown the world the way. In propelling Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage to triumph on 23 June, it demonstrated well before 8 November that Donald Trump was nothing new. In fact foolishness, vulgarity, inconsistency and irresponsibility seem actually to be British inventions that have been painstakingly copied – once more – by the Americans.

The hour of the political clown has come. In a few short weeks, Boris Johnson, the former journalist for whom facts were never an obstacle likely to get in the way of a good story, has succeeded in squandering what little sympathy and understanding was left in Europe for a UK embroiled in the mess of this referendum. It is quite some diplomatic achievement to have succeeded in uniting the 27 remaining members of the EU, who are all now firmly together in deciding to do the UK no favours whatsoever. It will be a 'hard Brexit', not because that is what Theresa May wants, but because her future ex-partners consider they have no choice faced with a UK so resolutely indecisive.

Johnson has displayed his complete ignorance of the union (perhaps not altogether surprising if you knew him as a 'journalist' in Brussels, as I did). According to his very personal interpretation of the European treaties, it is “bollocks” to say that the four fundamental freedoms (free movement of people, goods, services and capital) are inseparable. Yet the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, warned him: “We’ll happily send Her Majesty’s foreign minister a copy of the Lisbon Treaty. At a pinch, I can talk about it in English.”

UK businesses will have to deal with 60m more pieces of paperwork each year if Britain leaves the customs union as it departs the EU, according to research from a group campaigning to keep trade links with the bloc after Brexit. According to Open Britain, a hard Brexit could spark an “avalanche of paperwork” if thousands of importing and exporting businesses were forced to fill out similar forms to those required in moving goods and services beyond the union.

The claim comes as the government faces another potential legal challenge to its Brexit plans, this time from two campaigners who are seeking a judicial review in the High Court to keep Britain in the single market. Under the EU customs union, which deals with rules relating to trade, unified tariffs are levied on imports to the whole area, meaning no new charges or associated paperwork are needed for goods shipped between members.

According to Open Britain, customs data shows that last year the UK made 70.5m import declarations and 6.5m export declarations over trade in non-EU goods. The group says that if leaving the customs union involved a similar level of customs paperwork, it would require businesses to complete more than 45m import declarations and 15m export declarations every year. This contradicts the arguments of pro-Brexit campaigners made before the June referendum, namely that leaving the EU would save businesses from EU-related bureaucracy.

"The last six months have been characterised by broken promises, cold reality contrasting with their blithe assurances, and an arrogant belief that the British people have forgotten about the pledges made during the Brexit campaign.

Vote Leave’s most visible promise was to spend £350m more a week on the NHS. It bears repeating that five current cabinet ministers, along with many other mostly Conservative MPs, looked the British people in the eye and promised them a huge funding boost for our cash-strapped NHS. They cannot wriggle out of this. Since the referendum, the PM has failed to commit to the promise, which did not provoke a word of protest from her pro-Brexit ministers. The OBR has forecast a £58.7bn black hole in the public finances which is directly attributable to Brexit. The chancellor ignored the wishes of thousands of people who called on him to use the autumn statement to commit to the promise once Britain leaves.

Both Leave and Remain voters will rightly be angered by this betrayal. This may be the age of post-truth politics, but we are not going to forget such a visible promise. Focus groups suggest that the biggest disappointment for voters in the aftermath of the autumn statement has been the failure to spend any more money on the NHS. They need to be held to account for it."

I have a clear sense that most Brexiteers won't care a jot about what pre-referendum promises are broken in respect of the NHS - or many other assertions which were made on the 'Leave' side.

They will, however, be exercised by any perceived retreat from what they believe was a pledge to 'halt immigration' ( their most prized aspiration) and, thereby, to 'take control of our borders'. The problem many may have in dealing with their supposed 'triumph' will be not seeing all those 'dreadful foreigners' deported and the sight of some actually still coming in. Any such blow to their rabid hopes will almost certainly be met by cries of 'betrayal' and they will probably be led by the rubber-faced idiot Farage and his singularly unattractive sidekick Nuttall in that respect.

How sad that so many of the Brexit Brigade were Labour supporters, who should have known better than to give comfort to their natural knuckle-dragging opponents over an issue which split the Tories for so long.

We all know that leaving the EU won't bring a fraction of the many 'benefits' claimed by the sneering xenophobes, racists and miscellaneous malcontents and we can be sure that they will continue to blame those who took a contrary view for their dreams remaining unfulfilled. The further Labour stays away from that firing line the better...

Mrs May says she will come up with a deal that will please both the 52% and the 48%. What arrant nonsense! The only thing which will satisfy the 48% is if we stay in the EU, no other deal could match the benefits which we currently enjoy.

Only 9 of the 232 Labour MPs were Brexit supporters, along with around 35% of Labour voters. A majority of Labour constituencies voted to leave, but of course not all people in Labour constituencies are Labour voters. In a great number of constituencies, the elected MP - from whatever party - doesn’t have a majority of the votes, they just happen to have come first!

It was sad that one of our more prolific posters, who opted for leave and then tried and failed again and again to justify her stance on these boards, rushed off to Twitter in a fit of pique shouting “censorship” (even though all of her posts remain visible to this day), before trying to damage this forum by tweeting a fake header which someone must have made for her. Let's hope that she's proud of herself after helping to legitimise bigotry and racism.

I regularly defend Jeremy Corbyn’s right to lead Labour after securing two overwhelming majorities, and his views wouldn’t be considered ‘extreme’ in Scandinavia today (and wouldn’t have been in 1970s Britain), but I do think he’s wrong not to take a principled stand against Brexit. Leaving the EU is a disastrous idea for everyone, and especially for young people, and if you know something is wrong you should oppose it hook, line and sinker and damn the consequences.

The persistent irritant is that a majority of the British public voted to leave the EU, which makes any democratically justifiable argument for seeking to avoid Brexit a difficult one. As a nation, we knew upon having the opportunity to vote what the score was - and we blew it...

I share your discomfort about Corbyn not strongly coming out against Brexit - I suspect the Labour message might be a bit clearer if he did.

I'm aware he doesn't really feel the EU is a good thing - and I'm sure, like many large institutions, it is riddled with all kinds of problems - but as far as I can see, at present the alternative is unthinkable - I've never had a conversation with a Leaver where I felt they had really considered more than a very narrow angle on the issue (usually the one about immigration) and to my mind the potential pitfalls are dreadful and will ruin the country.

To say a majority voted for Brexit is an oversimplification in my view - certainly a small majority of those who voted did vote Leave - but there is a significant number who, for whatever reason, did not exercise their franchise - it may be that a majority in the country actually want to stay in the EU, or at least want some clearer idea about how the world would look post-Brexit before finally deciding.

The nation is divided into supporters of Conspiracy Theory, and advocates of the Cock-up explanation for political decisions.

Either might apply to the Brexit decision of voters last June, but Theresa May's administration seems content to run with the ball for so long as they continue to enjoy possession.

We are being expertly brainwashed to accept the proposition that goods can only get more expensive at the same time that wages are held at the same level. The objective of those in government such as BoJo and Brer Fox is to advertise Britain to foreign investors as a low-wage economy. Like Poland and similar EU members formerly on the Communist side of the Iron Curtain. We're all coolies now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolie

I can’t reach out to Brexiters anymore - they're destroying this country

From an article by Frank Owen (a university lecturer working under a pseudonym):-

"I'm not sure what's been worst about the Brexit process so far. The inability of the PM to be direct, or transparent, with the country; the laughably low quality of cabinet ministers central to the task - a laughter that always rings hollow, given we are now represented on the world stage by a serial liar and buffoon; the continual rhetorical attacks on key British values and institutions by the now-victorious Leavers; the endless, mindless demands for empty-headed positivity by people who never cared, or knew, about the colossal damage Brexit would cause; or the fact that the country is going to make itself poorer, smaller, less tolerant, weaker, a pitiful stunted lump of a thing, because people were upset that they once heard Polish being spoken on a bus.

Worst of all is the overblown hand-wringing insincerity of people who call themselves 'Liberal Leavers'. There was never going to be a Liberal Brexit - they were mere gloss, a coating of faint respectability on a project dominated by populists, nativists and the downright rotten of British politics. Having indulged a project whose logical conclusion was the erection of trade barriers between the UK and its largest single export market, they bleat that free trade must be defended. After a campaign in which a British MP was murdered by a far-right terrorist motivated by anti-immigration sentiment, a sentiment stoked up by those same individuals and institutions that campaigned for Leave alongside the 'Liberal Leavers', they have been pitifully silent in the face of the surge of hatred on our streets. Every day since June 23rd last year has affirmed to me that Brexit is the wrong choice for Britain."